NetBeans LWJGL Plugin

[jediTofu]

 

EDIT:  Removed link because project has moved from pre-Alpha into Alpha.  The plugin will not be released in this stage as little replies were made to this thread upon pre-Alpha.  In Beta phase, the plugin will be added to NetBean's plugin portal website, and the source code available on Kenai. -2010.10.28
I tried uploading in this post, but the file size was too big (5.75 MB), so I uploaded to a live account that I hardly ever use.  Click download towards the top and it should ask you to save org-lwjgl-nblwjglmod.nbm

This is the Pre-Alpha Release of the NetBeans LWJGL Plugin that I've been working on.  I figured that I would go ahead and post it up if anyone would like to test it.  I wrote this guide for complete beginners (as I will have to write a similar explanation for the plugin), so please don't think that I'm insulting anyone's intelligence here, just practicing writing a thorough guide.  This is a very early release and probably has bugs!  But I would really appreciate it if you test it!

It's only been tested on NetBeans IDE 6.9.1 (Build 201007282301) and Windows 7.

Installation
1. In top menu Tools->Libraries, if you have your LWJGL library named LWJGL2.6 (which is how the plugin installs it), there might be conflicts.  Temporarily delete it before trying this.  It's easy enough to add back.
2. Go to top menu Tools->Plugins->Downloaded [tab]->Add Plugins... [button].  Then select org-lwjgl-nblwjglmod.nbm from wherever you downloaded it to.
3. It should show up on the list now.  Check it and then click Install.
4. You might want to restart your IDE just to make sure everything is good.

Uninstallation
1. If you have no other user plugins installed, simply go to top menu Tools->Plugins->Installed [tab].  Then check User Installed Plugins.  Then click the Uninstall button.

2. If you have other user plugins installed, you'll need to add the Module Manager plugin (I know; you'd think that this would be already installed).  Go to top menu Tools->Plugins->Available Plugins [tab].  Click Reload Catalog button just in case.  Find the Module Manager plugin and install it.  You might have to restart the IDE.
2a. Now go to top menu Tools->Module Manager.  Find the LWJGL Module.  Select it, click Uninstall button.

3. Just to make sure everything is gone go to your NetBeans user directory (go to top menu Help->About and look at userdir; on my system: C:\Users\Bradley\.netbeans\6.9 ).  Look in modules/, modules/lib, and modules/docs for any lwjgl-named files.  (This release installs jinput.jar, lwjgl.jar, lwjgl_util.jar, lwjgl-source-2.6.zip, lwjgl-docs-2.6.zip, and all of the natives in a folder called lwjgl-2.6).  All of the files should be deleted after uninstallation of the module.

Available Features for Pre-Alpha Release
1. Library Installed.  Go to top menu Tools->Libraries.  A library named LWJGL 2.6 should be installed.
2. Project templates.  Go to top menu File->New Project...->Java [folder].  There should be FullScreenWindowedTest and PbufferTest (with the LWJGL icon).  This isn't where the samples will normally be installed, just there for testing purposes.  Create one of these projects.  When you clean and build, it should copy the natives to your dist folder using an ant build script.  You should be able to clean & build and run without any type of modifications.

Known Bugs
One time when I installed it, I went to create a new FullScreenWindowedTest project, and it didn't open.  I think that this was because I already had a LWJGL2.6 library in my library manager.  It didn't freeze the IDE or mess up any of my settings though.  Trying it again without the LWJGL2.6 library already installed seemed to fix it, but not sure if it was caused by something else.

If you have problems building...
please post the output of the clean & build from the NetBeans IDE to here.  Thanks.

As for other problems, I don't really have a logger for errors and hope that NetBeans outputs them.  This is a very early release, so yeah...

New Features?
I have a list of stuff that I'm going to add, but I'm releasing it early here so you can suggest new features or different ways of doing stuff.  I could name the library LWJGL2.6MODLIB or something so that there wouldn't be any conflicts if you have a library named LWJGL2.6 installed, but is this necessary?  If you're installing using the plugin, you shouldn't have another library copy anyway.

In the final release, there will be one (maybe 2) templates in File->New Project->Java.  Would you rather them be in their own folder at Java->LWJGL?
All of the demos taken from the lwjgl.org site will be in File->New Project->Samples->Java->LWJGL.
Slick-Util will most likely be added also, but probably as an optional add-on module, with basic samples.

the end  

[basil]

wicked! .. have you looked into the JOGL plugin way to handle the GLSL code, error handling / autocompl, etc?

that's the thing that doesn't work with netbeans 6.9.x anymore 

[jediTofu]

I haven't looked into it and am probably not going to add them.  I do have the NetBeans OpenGL Pack (https://netbeans-opengl-pack.dev.java.net/ for anyone who doesn't know) installed (just has JOGL, like you said, which is the reason I'm writing this plugin) and have used the shader, autcompl, etc.  Maybe I can add them in the distant future, but I don't have any plans too.  This will basically be a dumbed down version of the NetBeans OpenGL Pack.  For myself, I'm mainly doing it for the project templates (I get tired of setting VM options, etc. for every new project).  For others, I hope it'll be a lot easier for beginners to use LWJGL, and hopefully, you won't have to worry about updating your LWJGL library (as the plugin will do this automatically).

The project will be open source, and the source code will be hosted at http://kenai.com/ (at least that's what I plan).  So if people want to add these features or more, I can set you up as a developer so that you can commit source code, and you won't have to worry about the basic setup; I'm just laying down the base.  The actual plugin will be hosted at http://plugins.netbeans.org/PluginPortal/...hopefully I can set the automatic update center through my account there, haven't tried yet...